Phew, well, thanks to a courier service who lives up to the malign reputation of courier services, we missed being able to put one of J’s dearest friends in a real bed. :( The poor thing ended up on an air mattress. I was terribly disappointed. I hope she wasn’t too disappointed. However[...]

There’s a young lady out there who would like to know how I made the paper bird sculpture in my hallway. So here’s the first of two posts on the process. I have a cat sculpture armature in hand and will be taking pictures of the padding and paper gluing process in the next few [...][...]

Yep, it’s been a while. This is because we’ve been having houseguests over, mainly, plus lots of other social activity, and while I’ve been slowed down on the home front, I haven’t been inactive, so now I’m going to play catch-up on the blog. So, I’ll just jump ri[...]

I have to admit, I’m not huge on chutneys, but I do love the quick, not very pickled ones — I also love savory chutneys as opposed to simply sweet ones. They don’t last as long as the ones with lots of vinegar and long cooking times and mustard seeds and all that, but their [...][...]

Today we stopped by Argos and picked up the ARC Chrome Floor Lamp. This is now sitting in the living room. I love Argos — it’s sort of like a cross between the old-fashioned catalog stores like Sears Roebuck in the US and IKEA and Target. The reviews on the website are crucial — yo[...]

I have yet to manage a perfect soft-boiled egg on our new stove top. It’s one of those glass topped cookers, which marries all the downsides of electric cooking with the difficulties of keeping the dang things looking nice. (Oh, gas cookers, how I miss thee!) A 3.5 minute egg is turning out no[...]